


nice work you did

by hellodeer



Category: Graceland (TV)
Genre: Gen, High School AU, but a good kid, johnny is impossible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 08:04:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellodeer/pseuds/hellodeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody can quite believe Johnny is even real.</p><p>(or: five times Johnny was a slacker and things turned out alright for him anyway and one time he actually did the work)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nice work you did

**i.**

Mike is new to the group, so when Johnny misses an important Advanced English class, he is worried.

“Do you think he’s sick?” he asks during lunch, frowning. Jakes snorts.

“Nah, man. Johnny never gets sick,” Paul answers, stealing fries from Charlie’s plate.

Mike frowns harder, his adorable blue eyes filled with concern.

*

After school, the five of them go for a walk on the beach.

“Yo!” someone yells in their direction, coming from the water with a surfboard under their arm. It’s Johnny.

“There you are,” Charlie says, a small smile on her face, like she thinks Johnny is impossible but is accustomed to his ways.

“Here I am,” says Johnny; then he shakes his head like a dog, getting droplets of water all over them.

“Oh, come on, man—" Jakes says, annoyed.

“Goddamnit, Johnny,” goes Paige, moving away.

“You been here all day?” Mike asks, eyes wide with surprise and disbelief, rooted to the spot.

“Of course, man,” Johnny frowns at Mike, then grins and punches him in the arm. “You up for a swim?”

**ii.**

Charlie shakes her head, a disgusted look on her face.

“You are a jerk,” she says with emotion, to which Johnny laughs.

“How do you even do it?” asks Paige, looking between Johnny and his A+ graded test for which everybody knows he didn’t study in disbelief. 

“One of my many talents, babe,” Johnny drawls with a shit eating grin. Jakes scowls and slaps him on the back of the head on his way out of the classroom. “Aw, man! What did you do that for?”

**iii.**

“Pst, Johnny,” Mike whispers from the corner of his mouth, discreetly poking Johnny’s ribs. “Pssst, Johnny, wake up.”

Johnny grumbles something intelligible, moving his forehead a bit along his arm, where his head is resting.

“Sorry, what was that?” asks Mike quietly, frowning, trying to pay attention to Mr Badillo and Johnny at the same time.

Johnny lifts his head from the desk just enough to be able to speak. “What, man? It’s Spanish class, you’re the only one who needs it. Let me sleep.” 

“Oh,” says Mike, and does just that.

**iv.**

“I swear to God, Johnny,” Jakes says, anger rolling out of him in waves.

“I’m just saying, bro,” Johnny smiles around a mouthful of chips. “It _is_ pretty stupid that he got his dick stuck on ice. Guy’s an asshole,” and he starts laughing and laughing and laughing, literally rolling on Jakes’s bedroom floor.

Jakes sighs, rolls his eyes to the Heavens. “I can’t _believe_ you’re telling me about some guy’s dick when we’re supposed to be working on a school project,” he murmurs, running a hand through his face and hair.

Johnny’s laugh dies down gradually. “I know, I know, man,” he says. “Sorry. Give me twenty minutes, okay?”

Jakes waves his hand in dismissal. “Yeah, Johnny, whatever.”

 **v.**

“Did you write the essay for History class?” asks Mike, after Johnny has caught up with him and they’re walking together.

“Nope,” Johnny answers, a huge grin on his face.

Mike is troubled. “Are you going to?”

“Yep.”

“It’s due today.”

Johnny slings an arm around Mike’s shoulders. “I know, white boy, I know.”

*

“Where’s Johnny?” Mike inquires the table at large, setting his tray down.

“Who knows,” Paige answers.

*

Then it’s Word History class, and Johnny comes in two seconds before the bell rings. He drops something on the teacher’s desk.

“Was that your essay?” asks Mike, perplexed. 

“Yup.”

“You did it during _lunch_? That was a four page essay,” Mike says, outraged. Johnny smiles his most shit eating grin. “I spent a _week_ working on mine!”

Mike watches as Johnny chuckles and shrugs, going “What can I say, bro?” Paul, sitting behind Mike, takes him by the shoulders and leans him back against his seat.

“Better get used to it, Mikey,” Paul says, while Mike tries to understand Johnny and fails.

**+1**

“Sorry man, can’t go out today,” Johnny declares, and Mike hears movement on Johnny’s side of the line, the sound of Windows being turned on.

“Why?” Mike asks, suspiciously. Johnny can always go out for pizza.

“I’ve got to finish my college essay. Plus, might have to babysit little Ted later,” Mike can hear typing, and running, and Johnny’s mother shouting something in Spanish.

“Oh, okay. Rain check?” 

“Yeah, bro,” says Johnny, and hangs up.

*

“Did you solve problem twenty eight?” Charlie turns to Johnny, frowning hard, because she’s been trying for twenty minutes and she still can’t solve the damn equation.

“Um,” Johnny says. The library is quiet around them, the sound of Johnny sorting through papers until he finds the one where he wrote problem number twenty eight the only thing disturbing the silence. “Yeah, here it is. So--”

Charlie listens as Johnny talks.

*

“Johnny hasn’t bothered me in _weeks_ , man,” Jakes says.

Paul shrugs. “He’s just busy with applications.”

“Yeah,” Jakes sighs. They’re silent for a minute, leaning against the wall watching people go by, then: “I just miss him, you know?”

Paul chuckles.

“If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it,” says Dale very seriously.

Paul puts his hands up as if in surrender.

*

Paige is getting out of the water with her own little one when she sees Johnny and Daniel, age seven. Johnny is kneeling on the sand, talking to Dan, who looks thrilled after riding his first wave. Johnny double high fives him, then Daniel tackle hugs Johnny.

Paige smiles, ruffling Jessica’s wet hair.

*

“You got into all six of them?” Mike asks, amazed. Standing beside Johnny, Charlie smiles small and proud. Paige has tears in her eyes. “Including—Harvard?” he picks up the acceptance letter from Johnny’s desk, reading it with wide eyes.

“I don’t know why you sound so surprised, bro,” Johnny says, but he’s smiling. Jakes has been sitting on the desk behind Johnny just shaking his bowed head for ten minutes, like he can’t believe Johnny is even real; he’s probably broken. Paul just smirks, arms crossed. “I’m a straight A student, I do the work, I got two thousand one hundred eighty on the SATs, I volunteer, I write killer essays. I’m a good kid, yo.”

Mike grins; he can’t quite believe Johnny is real himself, but this he knows. “Yeah, you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> he. it's a silly thing. title from the offspring's you're gonna go far, kid.


End file.
